


The One Constant

by wabbajack



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Genre: Gen, Shivering Isles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2018-11-16
Packaged: 2019-08-24 10:28:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16638206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wabbajack/pseuds/wabbajack
Summary: One would never think, to look at him, that Chamberlain Haskill was a creature of any particular significance.





	The One Constant

**Author's Note:**

> Set prior to the events of Shivering Isles, somewhere in the distant past.
> 
> Before we start, a quick note for continuity purposes. I formed my impressions of these characters some time before the release of The Elder Scrolls Online, which never really caught on with me, and so any Shivering Isles stories I post will be based exclusively on the original DLC itself (including a lot of Haskill dialogue that's easy to miss), the official roleplay from SI devs titled "Interview With Two Denizens of the Shivering Isles," a little daedric dialogue from Battlespire, the odd Skyrim continuity nod, and my own headcanon.
> 
> So if you find yourself wondering why, for instance, Haskill is written as a lesser daedra rather than a former mortal (and why I take him at his word that he has served his master since "the beginning"), that would be the reason. Elder Scrolls lore is notoriously flexible, anyway. And now, having clarified that, here's the story.

***

_"My enjoyment is entirely beside the point. I exist to serve the Realm. Nothing more, nothing less. As to how I came into Lord Sheogorath's service... all I will say is that he and I go back to the beginning. You might say that I am the one constant in the ever-changing whims of the Madgod."_  
  
-Haskill, Interview With Two Denizens of the Shivering Isles

***

One would never think, to look at him, that Chamberlain Haskill was a creature of any particular significance. He was a smallish sort of fellow, as daedric things went, and though he certainly dressed very well he had a plain look about him, with uninterested brown eyes and a balding head and a nose that might only be described as arrogant. He could, seemingly at will, adopt the expression of one who had never held a thought in his head more lofty than whether the good silver had been recently polished, and he had a way of standing very straight with his hands folded, politely gazing at nothing as he awaited his master's word, that inclined the eye of an observer in the palace who knew no better to simply slide right off of him.

The effect was not accomplished by way of magic. In fact, setting aside for a moment that he was immortal, Haskill had no real magic of his own about him at all. What little he did possess, such as the subtle trick of coming and going within the borders of the Realm in elegant wisps of smoke, he was able to work only with his lord's blessing.

No, Haskill had no real magic about him. He had, in fact, only two particular strengths. The first was that he was intelligent. The second was that he was dear to the heart of a Prince.

(What too few creatures realized in a timely manner was this: that one who possessed only these two strengths had no need of any others.)

Now of course only the very, very foolish might think that a vassal who held a high place in the master's favor must live a life of ease because of it. He was very well able to remain on his feet for weeks, if not months without pause, and the lengths of time that passed between one moment of what one might reasonably term near-leisure and the next would best be measured on the geologic scale. Haskill was forever at his duties: he minded the Realm, he carried out his master's will, and he stood subtle guard over Lord Sheogorath's secrets.

(Only Haskill, of all of them, knew the place from which the Enemy came, every thousand years exactly, though even he did not know why. This terrible knowledge he safeguarded above all others. That the lord of the Realm at times...fell ill...was not for all Oblivion to know.)

Yes, Haskill was forever at his duties, and he carried out Lord Sheogorath's will, and on this particular day, at one-quarter to four by the measure of the oddly angled clock that ticked and barked upon the wall, Sheogorath's will happened to be that Haskill attend to him while he made himself presentable for afternoon tea.

"NO!" the Prince of Madness thundered, and the stones of the palace trembled with his displeasure. "Never! Absolutely not! Absolutely knot! Haskill! Make a note of it. Whoever it was that tailored this shirt, I want him strung up by the neck until he is dead! Six knots at least, if not faster!"

The offending garment came soaring out of the royal wardrobe, which was less a mere _storage cabinet_ than it was an ominous set of exquisitely-carved doors that opened upon a vast maze of sartorial majesty, which more than one mortal servant had never found their way out of again before perishing of thirst. Haskill found mortals to be very inconsiderate creatures, always dying where they weren't wanted - did they ever stop to think that _someone_ would have to get the smell of their undiscovered remains out of the master's jackets? Of course they didn't, the wretched animals.

He might have turned himself to dark smoke and thereby avoided the offending shirt, but as it was Lord Sheogorath who was hurling various articles of clothing about the room Haskill dutifully stood his ground. A moment later, through the layer of finely-stitched silks that were now draped over his head, he said, with the greatest formality: "As you wish, Sire. I shall have it done."

"Good man! Good old Haskill. I don't know what was in My head, lettin' such a thing as that in here. Awful. Hate it. I won't wear marigold, Haskill. Dreadful color. Bees walk on it, you know."

"Yes, Sire."

Haskill reached up and carefully lifted the thrown shirt off himself, folding it neatly over one arm. Then he was of course obligated to make himself presentable again, as his collar had been jostled and some of his hair was out of place, but to put everything right required only three seconds or so. He might have managed it as quickly even without a mirror available. He took this sort of thing _extremely_ seriously.

"Oohhh, this is just terrible. There's nothing to wear, and it's a quarter to four! I'll be late!"

Lord Sheogorath would not be late. It had been a quarter to four in the Isles for rather a long time now, and it would continue to be a quarter to four until the Madgod decided it wasn't. Haskill did not consider it his place to point this out, however; if the guests downstairs knew what was good for them, they would wait for as long as the master required. Sheogorath arrived in his own time, which was of course the only time, and therefore he was always _on_ time.

Except, of course, for when he wasn't. That was the way of things in the Realm.

"Hold on - did I already pull out the frog-skin jacket today? I can't quite sort out the days the way I want them."

"I'm afraid you did, sir."

"Oh. Well, what did I think of it?"

"You decided against it. You said-" and here Haskill sighed, almost imperceptibly. "-that no frogs had been invited, and therefore if you wore it you might not be let in the door."

"Hm...I suppose I'll have to trust My judgement on the matter."

"Of course, my Lord."

 _Yes, my Lord. Of course, my Lord. Very good, my Lord._ Haskill had a broad repertoire of them. They were things some lesser creature than himself might say again and again in hopes of placating the mad Prince; from such a creature the words would be hollow, and self-serving. Haskill would have turned up his arrogant nose at the very idea. Lord Sheogorath had never injured him - the Enemy, that abhorrent _thing_ , was not his master and therefore did not factor into any such calculations - but even so Haskill knew better than to think something so foolish as that the master might be _placated._

No. When Haskill stood up straight and folded his hands and said _very good, my Lord_ , no matter what it was or how much extra work it would mean for him, and no matter how much it pressed him to resort to the endless well of sarcasm to vent his stresses upon those he considered beneath him, which was to say most people...he **meant** it.

This was what it meant to be faithful.

Lord Sheogorath came pacing out of the wardrobe. He had something of a cat's nature in him at all times (charming, inquisitive, and destructive by turns, with a tendency to express affection by way of the mutilated bodies of small animals) but on this day after a morning of many restless changes of shape and form he had apparently decided to be even more of a cat than usual. For however long _that_ lasted.

It was in the form of a Khajiit man with graying whiskers, aged but vital, that Lord Sheogorath emerged. His teeth were sharp and his eyes were Aureal-yellow and bright (still Manic then, for what little that was worth in predicting his moods) and his sleek pelt had many dark little markings of a sort that would make the eyes of weak-willed things begin to drift dangerously out of focus. He stood there in his fine trousers and a half-buttoned shirt, yet another jacket in hand, and his tail lashed as he looked at some empty spot on the far wall.

"Haskill."

"Sir."

"I...I had a reason," he murmured. His tail lashed.

Haskill waited.

Sheogorath's ears twitched. Forward, then back. He turned his head, every inch the Skooma Cat, unknowable.

Haskill waited.

And then, quite suddenly, Sheogorath's yellow gaze twitched slightly downwards to rest upon Haskill's arm, and his powerful, bestial face with its many needle-sharp teeth at once became delighted. "Oh! What a lovely shirt you've found for Me. Good old Haskill. I can always count on you to figure something out for your dear master, can't I?"

"Yes, my Lord. Thank you, my Lord." And he surrendered the fine marigold silk shirt to Lord Sheogorath and said nothing more on the subject.

The oddly angled clock that ticked and barked upon the wall still read quarter-to-four. Sheogorath pulled free of the half-buttoned shirt of a moment ago and dressed himself in the marigold, purring like rocks grinding together. The room was a mess, and the wardrobe likely more so - but that was the way of things in the Realm, and so in a sense it was all right.

Haskill noticed then that the Madgod had buttoned and then unbuttoned and then buttoned again the same few buttons near the collar of his shirt, beginning to frown into the mirror, and he considered how much longer it was likely to remain quarter-to-four if Lord Sheogorath now fell into a cycle of buttons and unbuttons because the buttons were never quite right, somehow. Haskill did not consider it his place to even suggest that his master leave it be, and certainly if the guests downstairs knew what was good for them they would continue to wait for as long as Lord Sheogorath required.

Still. It _was_ his place to mind the Realm, and to figure something out.

"Shall I, Sire?" he offered, very properly, and very meek.

Sheogorath's yellow eyes came back into focus and he blinked, and turned his head away from the mirror, and then back to it, and then back to Haskill again. "Yes. Yes, you shall."

Haskill - who was only a smallish sort of fellow, with no real magic about him - crossed the space between himself and perhaps the most dangerous of all the Lords of Oblivion with the most professionally long-suffering look about him that any creature had ever had. And then he set about fixing the buttons and straightening the collar of the marigold shirt; if there was one thing he knew (and he knew rather a lot) it was expensive clothes.

There were only so many ways to button a shirt, of course, and it was really no different from any of the ways that Sheogorath had buttoned it already. But Haskill did it just the same, and Sheogorath looked intently at his reflection for a long moment with a storm upon his striped brow and then all at once flashed all his teeth.

"There, you've sorted it!" he said, almost pressing his nose to the glass. "You've always been such a snappy dresser, My dear. I think that's why I like you. Now then-"

-and he snatched up his jacket and bounded out of the room like the enormous prowling cat that he was, stirring up the mess of discarded clothes as he went, and his long spotted tail trailed behind him out the door-

"-I'm off for tea! Tea and little cakes! And death! Or only tea, I haven't decided. Don't be long!"

Haskill slowly reached up and removed a discarded shirt from his face for the second time that day, and he looked around, and he sighed.

The oddly angled clock that ticked and barked upon the nearby wall twitched its arm slightly.

The time was three forty-six.


End file.
